From PVC, silicone-coated materials, nylon mesh, electronics, and different discovered or manipulated supplies, Rong Bao creates oddly personable inflatable sculptures. “My fascination with inflatable structures began when I realized how absurd, tender, and unstable they could be—all at once,” the artist tells Colossal. “Unlike rigid materials, inflatables breathe, wobble, collapse, and revive. They seem alive, with a sense of humor and vulnerability that deeply resonates with me.”
Rong’s ongoing sequence of alien-like creatures tread the boundaries between humor and discomfort, abstraction and illustration, and what she describes as “cuteness and existential instability.” The artist takes on a job akin to a playful mad scientist—simply think about Frankenstein’s unpredictable monster as a bouncy, neon pink confection.
Rong spends a number of weeks to months getting every composition good by sketching, prototyping parts, testing inflation habits and structural integrity, then fabricating the ultimate piece. “It often involves a lot of trial and error—and a lot of laughter and despair in between,” she says.
Rong was lately featured in an episode of the BBC’s youngsters’s tv program, Go Get Arty, and is at the moment engaged on a fee for Harper’s Bazaar China that comes with a standard, light-weight silk cloth with deep cultural roots in China.
“I see my practice as a playground of soft contradictions—between seriousness and silliness, desire and failure, monumentality and deflation,” Rong says. “Many of my pieces are meant to be touched, entered, or even played with. I love it when viewers smile and laugh, and then suddenly feel a little unsettled. That moment of emotional wobble—that’s the space I’m after.”
Rong’s work was lately on view in Selfridges’ show home windows, a part of a sequence titled New Age by which the division retailer showcased 15 rising artists. And he or she additionally lately accomplished a large-scale fee titled “Carnivorous Bloom” for Pinacoteca Agnelli in Torino, Italy. Discover extra on the artist’s web site and Instagram.
